This week in Donald Trump's conflicts of interest: Home is where the president's last name is emblazoned

The president's son just wants to make some money for his golf club. What's so wrong about that?

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April 1, 2017 5:50PM (UTC)

President Donald Trump has had an interesting week when it comes to his ever-growing list of conflicts of interest. Once again, Trump and his family and associates seem unwilling to acknowledge that it is improper for them to mix business with politics.

Trump's son promoted their golf club when the president was dropping by for a visit

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On the Monday after Trump visited the Trump National Golf Club in Virginia, his son Donald Jr. promoted an impending event on various social media accounts. As has been noted before, the president visiting his own businesses without fully divesting himself means that he is allowing them (and, once he leaves the presidency, himself) to benefit from the publicity garnered by virtue of being a sitting president and seen attending these properties. This marks the eighth consecutive weekend since taking office in which the president has visited a Trump-branded property.

The Trump Organization wants to open a second Washington hotel

The goal here, as run by Trump's sons, seems to be to convert one of the medium-sized hotels in Washington's higher-income neighborhoods into a venue associated with the Trump Organization's Scion brand. While these hotels would be owned by other businesses, they would license the Trump name — and, presumably, benefit from their association with a business empire owned by the family of the president, while situated in the nation's capital.

Trump's special adviser on regulation is weighing in on matters that involve his own business empire

Billionaire investor Carl Icahn already has a reputation for lack of scrupulousness, so perhaps it isn't surprising that he wants to weaken regulations on how corn-based ethanol can be mixed with gasoline. The problem? Icahn is the majority shareholder of an oil refinery known as CVR Energy, which would have saved more than $200 million in last year alone had Icahn's proposed policy been in effect. Indeed, CVR Energy has already earned $455 million between Trump's election and last week as a result of Icahn's close association with the president.

Matthew Rozsa

Matthew Rozsa is a breaking news writer for Salon. He holds an MA in History from Rutgers University-Newark and is ABD in his PhD program in History at Lehigh University. His work has appeared in Mic, Quartz and MSNBC.